Jack, on the other hand, is not happy: ‘A plastic Christmas tree?’ he yelps, as if someone had trodden on his foot. ‘Why can’t we have a real one?’
‘Because…’ I don’t know what comes next. Because giant rabbits are stamping through the county eating all the real Christmas trees? ‘Listen, love.’
‘I know,’ he mumbles, shuffling his bottom onto my knee. ‘You haven’t got loads of money for presents this year.’
‘Yes, but we’ll still have a great time.’
‘It’s okay,’ Jack says. He falters. ‘What I really want for Christmas is to see my dad.’
What I really want for Christmas is a whole lot of fun shopping at Harvey Nichols. But that’s not going to happen, is it?
‘Can I see him over Christmas? You can phone Nana to fix it up.’
‘I don’t think I can,’ I say.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t want you to see him.’
‘Why?’
‘We’re happy right now and I don’t want anything to disrupt that.’
From my uncompromising tone, Jack senses that I’m not going to change my mind and removes himself to a chair at the far end of the room. ‘Can I buy him a present? I have pocket money in my piggy-bank.’
‘If you like.’
‘And send him a card?’
‘That would be nice, he’d like that.’
What is worse than me taking Jack Christmas shopping for Damien’s present? Let me think… A hysterectomy without an anaesthetic comes a close second.
‘Jack, I’ll take you.’ Rhodri has seen the blood drain from my face. ‘I’ve got to go into town, so I’ll take you to buy a present for your dad.’
‘Thanks.’ Jack stomps upstairs to pull out cash from his piggy-bank.
‘That’s very generous of you,’ I say to Rhodri.
‘Well, I didn’t think you’d want to go shopping for Damien. And we can buy you a present while we’re there.’
I hand Rhodri ten pounds, ‘Give this to Jack,’ I tell him, ‘to spend on presents.’
Rhodri puts the note in his pocket, expecting me to explain further.
‘I don’t mind if he spends some of it on his dad.’ By which I mean, not a lot.
When Jack and Rhodri have left for the shops, I call Margaret No. 2. ‘Jack’s off to buy Damien a Christmas present,’ I huff. ‘Has Damien bought Jack a present? If he hasn’t,’ I add bitterly, ‘he’d better because Jack will be very upset.’
‘I don’t know,’ she says.
‘I doubt it,’ I add. ‘He’s never bought Jack a present in his life.’ Which is almost true. Damien has bought Jack very few presents over the last eight years. ‘I’ll get Eddie to call him and then I’ll call you back.’
A few minutes pass before Margaret calls back: ‘He’s assured Eddie he’s bought Jack a present, so we’ll see.’
The boys are back just in time for Margaret No. 3’s arrival. I bargained with Rhodri’s mother that if she helps me to rearrange the house I will cook dinner. Unfortunately, she has been instructed to cook for us because I’m too busy finding odd shoes in odd places and Rhodri is again semi-horizontal with man-flu.
‘I’m sorry you’ve been invited for dinner then had to make it yourself,’ I say to Rhodri’s mother.
We really should treat her better. She spends all her time cooking for other people. This is her first visit to our house and she’s been enlisted to wash dishes, fold clothes and slave over the cooker. She said, ‘I don’t mind, I love to help.’
But as I point out to Rhodri, ‘It’s a bit cheeky of us.’
Christmas Eve – Lord, give me strength. I’m whizzing down the aisles in the supermarket in a festive stupor throwing all sorts into the trolley and wondering why this Christmas will be as desperately skint as all the others, even though Rhodri and I hold university degrees. Benefit claimants on the estate seem richer than us. Education has made me an articulate, debt-ridden pauper. Joy to the world!
Jack is scooting about in front of and behind me, generally being a bit of a pest, but full of excitement, chanting: ‘Can I have this? Can I have this? Can I have this?’ Meanwhile I lob bright green bottles of pop into the trolley.
Rhodri is far, far behind us; so distant I’d have to set off a flare for him to find us. He’s checking the ingredients on the labels of everything we’ve hurled or plan to hurl into the shopping trolley. I sped off because he was snickering and dragging his feet. The moment he started with ‘Do you know what this contains?’ I hissed, ‘Shut up, Rhodri.’ But still he went on to tell me how I was going to contract breast cancer, or stomach cancer, or some other cancer. Which may well be true, but it’s not practical to check the ingredients of every product in a store the size of a small town when I just want to stock up on sugary crap and party food and get my sorry arse out of there. I don’t want to be told that some time in the future I may have a mastectomy because of a cancerous lump caused by spraying chemicals onto my armpit skin. It’s Christmas Eve: I simply want to buy a can of fragrant body spray so I don’t stink to high heaven on Christmas Day.
Oh, bugger. Rhodri is closing in on us. ‘Don’t,’ I warn.
‘I don’t know why we had to shop at a supermarket,’ he protests.
‘Because it’s easy, and I’m short of time and it’s cheap and you wanted me to cook Christmas dinner this year.’
‘This is depressing,’ he moans, flopping against shelves piled high with crisps and nuts.
‘What’s depressing?’
I look around us. A toddler has thrown himself on the floor, his mother is screaming at him. We’re at the big out-of-town place near one of Europe’s largest council estates; you don’t get a high-class shopper here – many people have tattoos and facial piercings, and most of the trolleys are loaded with high-fat snacks, frozen food and multi-packs of beer. That’s where I need to go, the wine aisle, and soon.
‘It makes me feel sad, all these people buying things they don’t need, all the waste. All the cars in the car park, and no thought for climate change. Or a thought that supermarkets are exploiting workers in other countries.’
‘Don’t feel depressed, feel happy. It’s a special time to spend with the ones you love.’
‘I can’t help it, I hate Christmas,’ he insists.
Well, why the hell didn’t he say that before he elected to spend time with us over Christmas? A small boy’s future jolliness is at stake here. One miserable Christmas and he could hate me for life. ‘You’re being unfair,’ I say sternly, my mind set on the booze aisle. ‘Think of Jack.’
‘It’s his future I’m thinking of,’ says Rhodri. ‘He won’t have one if we carry on like this.’
‘You’re being ungrateful,’ I say. ‘I’m trying my hardest to make sure we all have a good Christmas, that our home is comfortable, that we have nice food. I’m financing it, and you want to make me feel bad about the environment. That isn’t fair.’
And it isn’t. My heart is breaking. All I want is to give Jack a fun Christmas.
In the hours since we returned from the supermarket, Rhodri has been on the brink of tears. He is standing behind me, leaning against the cooker. We’ve opened a bottle of red wine. The radio is belting out festive hits. With my bare hands I’m shoving butter under the skin of a fat, dead, but organic, locally reared and homeopathically treated turkey. I purchased this extravagant bird from an uncharitably expensive independent butcher. Excluding the obvious slaughtered-bird part of this, Rhodri should be proud of me, not despairing. Jack is watching Christmas television, writing his list, checking it twice, and running into the kitchen every few minutes asking, ‘Can I pull a cracker?’
We’re all wearing Christmas hats and I’m sporting a dashing red apron with laughing reindeers printed all over it. It’s not quite one of those scenes you see on the adverts and that I fantasized about. For a start, we’re not hysterically chirpy; right now the turkey is the only one getting any attention.
In my ideal
world everything would be different. Jack would be tucked up in bed, his Santa sack bulging with gifts. Rhodri would be helping me stuff and baste the turkey. This scene would swiftly morph into the Patrick-Swayze-shags-Demi-Moore pottery sequence in Ghost but with Vitalite sunflower spread, not clay.
‘Come on, Rhodri,’ I exclaim, with a forced smile. ‘Cheer up. It’s almost Christmas!’ I jig my hips a little to Slade on the radio in a useless attempt at getting him to boogie with me, or alternatively to bend me over and give me a good seeing-to on the kitchen table. He ignores me. Slade drones on and on about wishing it could be Christmas every day until Mariah Carey swings in to take the baton. I sing along to ‘All I Want For Christmas Is Youuuuuuu’, but don’t add, ‘to fucking well cheer up’ at the end. ‘It’s supposed to be fun,’ I say.
‘It hasn’t been much fun.’
‘This is what Christmas is like as an adult with a family. You have to do it all yourself.’
Rhodri looks at me blankly.
‘When your mother has all you boys and the girlfriends over for Christmas dinner, she has to do it for you. She has to work hard to make it good for you.’
‘But she enjoys waiting on us.’
‘And she has to clean and tidy the house beforehand,’ I explain, ‘and shop, and wrap presents and prepare the table. It’s a lot of work, Rhodri.’
‘But she likes it.’
Rhodri has proved my suspicions correct: men genuinely are dim if they think women enjoy this preposterous débâcle that is tantamount to slave labour.
‘All these years your mother has done it for you, now it’s your turn to do it for other people.’
‘If that’s the way it is, I don’t want it. I don’t want to do this.’
‘You said you wanted us to host Christmas dinner. Not me.’
‘I didn’t know it would be like this.’ He pauses and looks directly at me, ‘What’s the point?’
‘Of what, Rhodri?’
‘Christmas – when the earth is…’ Then Rhodri starts to cry. Not over me. Or Jack. He cries because families all over the world are indulging in the most heinous crime against the planet known to mankind.
Glancing at the opened recipe book I see I need some fresh rosemary for the potatoes. ‘Jack,’ I shout, ‘go and dress head to foot in black.’
‘Why?’
‘Because we’re going to go and steal some rosemary from that garden around the corner.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I need it for this recipe and the pre-packed rosemary in the supermarket travelled on a plane from Israel to get here.’
‘So we’re going to steal it from that old lady’s garden instead?’
‘Yes. Pretend you’re James Bond and this is Mission Rosemary.’
‘Sick,’ he says, which means ‘great’ in kidspeak.
Ooooh, I want to kill myself. Seriously, I do. Tomorrow I’m going to take that bubbling roasting tin from the hot oven and shove my head in it.
PART TWO
10
I made as much progress on project ‘happy family’ at Christmas as I would have done roller-skating up a glacier backwards. That is, I made everyone happy but me. A fortnight later, I’m in a bad mood. The happiness was, in reality, condensed into three hours on Christmas Day when Rhodri ate a vegan haggis, while my omnivorous stepfamily tucked into a three-course meal, taken straight from my Gordon Ramsay cookbook and using vegetables that Rhodri grew on the allotment. As for presents, Rhodri seemed to appreciate the organic and ethically farmed Welsh woollen jumper I’d bought for him until I shrank it in the washing machine.
Jack went back to school today, and Rhodri is at work, so I thought I’d polish the bookshelves with my secret supply of Pledge that Margaret No. 2 left behind for me. I need to open the windows and waft the smell away before Rhodri comes home. I’m neatening the shelves when a book by Janice Galloway called The Trick Is To Keep Breathing catches my eye. This inspires me to take a coffee break and compile my own tailor-made list of tricks:
– The Trick is to stop opening bills.
– The Trick is to stop spending.
– The Trick is to stop working.
– The Trick is to stop wanting a married life with three children.
– The Trick is to stop wishing for the magical day when I will leave this bloody awful council estate.
– The Trick is to stop imagining an easier life than this.
While I’m at it, I give myself some New Year resolutions:
I am going to be the best mum ever and take on difficulties with a positive attitude, including Jack’s reluctance to do homework.
I am going to be the best girlfriend ever and not engage in extra-relationship romances, even if my boyfriend encourages me to.
I am going to cut down on tedious low-paid work and write a play instead.
I am sick of this place. Ever since Christmas I have had problems with my wheelie-bin. Somebody keeps swiping it, and that someone lives round the corner: Tina. Henceforth, this internationally important political issue shall be known as the Wheelie-bin War. I should add another New Year resolution to my list:
4. I am going to stick up for myself on this estate, and not quiver behind the curtains when someone like Tina upsets me.
Of all my resolutions, this one is the most pressing. Throughout Christmas week I hauled bags of rubbish out to my bin, only to find it wasn’t there. Then one day I opened the gate to find piles of rubbish scattered everywhere outside my garden fence. The local council will issue a penalty fine for this, and it isn’t even my rubbish.
I opened the bin-bags and rifled through them to discover it was Tina’s rubbish. I sneaked down the alley and peered through the gap in Tina’s fence to discover she had, once again, taken my wheelie-bin. It has my house number painted on it in huge white figures. It is my bin.
Two days ago Tina walked past my house so I opened the front door and called nervously: ‘Tina, have you got my bin?’
‘No,’ she lied.
I said, ‘I think you have got my bin. Can you please leave it outside my gate?’
‘I will,’ she shouted.
I look out today and still no freaking bin. Even more rubbish has accumulated outside my gate.
I’m not being petty. This has been going on for months, years even. And she has her own foul, smelly bin. She doesn’t pay someone to clean it like I do with mine.
This very moment Tina is walking through the communal gardens and past my window. Now is as good a time as any to tackle New Year Resolution 4. I take a deep breath, ignore my jitters, and head out of the front door. There’s only one way to do this and it’s at full volume. That way, if she thumps me, Josie or Philomena can come to my rescue.
‘Tina,’ I call, striding down the path, swinging my arms in the most aggressive way I know how.
‘What?’
‘I’ve called Environmental Health, and if you don’t shift that rubbish this afternoon – it has your name written all over it – you’ll get a massive fine. And I’ll have my bin back, thank you.’ I turn to go.
‘I’ve spoken to the police about you,’ she snaps back. ‘If you or ya knobhead boyfriend come in me garden again, you’ll get arrested.’
She’s saying this because for the past two months I have been sending Rhodri on retrieval missions. He scales her fence, grabs the bin and darts out with it, yet the next week it still ends up back in her garden.
‘But it’s my bin!’
‘Yeah, ’n’ it’s my garden ya trespassin’ on.’
‘Just put the bin out, Tina.’
‘Ya can tell ya boyfriend that if he comes in the garden again, Keano’s gonna batter ’im.’
I make a mental note to add that name to the list of people who threaten to batter one or other of us. It’s quite long now. I’ll speak her language, see if that works: ‘Put the fucking bin out, Tina – okay?’
‘Yur off ya head. Yur fuckin’ freaks, the pair of ya. An’ my Keano will kno
ck him out, so you can tell him not to step foot in my garden. All right?’
Yes, yes, yes, Tina, that’s all very interesting: ‘Environmental Health On the Way. Shift It,’ I say, then turn on my heels and stamp off, shaking with fright.
‘Weirdo,’ she hisses, when my back is turned.
As I walk through the gardens back to my house, I feel uneasy. I really don’t like confrontation. But if I don’t stick up for myself on this estate, I’ll just end up getting bullied. On a more practical level, I have nowhere to leave our domestic waste.
When Rhodri returns from work at lunchtime, I inform him of his impending hospital visit. ‘Tina said that if we go in her back garden again, Keano’s going to batter you.’
‘Come on,’ Rhodri says, with a will of steel. ‘We need to end this.’ He strides out to the back garden, and down the alley, dragging me with him. He swings open Tina’s gate.
‘I don’t know if we should.’ I wince, thinking of Keano. Then again, the man is a wimp. Rhodri could manage him, easy.
Rhodri doesn’t enter the garden. Instead, his feet stay firmly in the alleyway as he stretches his arm into Tina’s garden. He yanks the bin out, tips it upside down and shakes the contents into a heap by her fence. Then he collects all the bags of rubbish she has left by our back gate and hurls them outside hers. ‘She can clear that up too,’ says my wheelie-bin super-hero.
Oh dear. Tina’s going to be so miffed about that.
A couple of hours later, I open the window to hear Tina cursing and huffing as she sweeps the mess up. War over, I think. We won. Hoorah. And I didn’t really call Environmental Health.
Saturday morning, I open the curtains and am relieved to see that Tina has not thrown eggs at the windows all week. There’ll be some form of retribution, I’m sure. Hero-ofthe-month Rhodri is relaxing in bed, enjoying a weekend lie-in, a good time, I think, to tell him about one of my other New Year resolutions. ‘I’m going to give up that job with the newspaper. I’m going to write a play to take to the Edinburgh Fringe this summer.’
Single Mother on the Verge Page 7